


Of Family, Traditions, and Late Night Visits

by SabbyStarlight



Series: Cairo Week 2020! [1]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: A little fluffy, A whole lot of angst, But with an ending that's...hopeful, Cairo Week 2020, Gen, a little sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23632243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SabbyStarlight/pseuds/SabbyStarlight
Summary: Happy Cairo Week!Day One:  FamilyThe first Cairo Day after Jack left to hunt down Kovacs.
Series: Cairo Week 2020! [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701235
Comments: 30
Kudos: 59





	Of Family, Traditions, and Late Night Visits

**Author's Note:**

> I was one hundred percent sure that I wasn't going to have anything to post for today. Family day kinda snuck up on me for some reason, and I've got several other day's prompts ready and waiting but this one just wasn't going to happen. I had accepted that. And then this came out of nowhere. I'm well aware this isn't very whumpy, but we're gonna call it a super angsty, whump-adjacent Cairo Day miracle and I'll make up for it later in the week, I promise.

Mac was on edge. 

Anyone could see it, or at least, they could have seen it if they had been around. The rest of the team had been sent on a mission and weren't scheduled to return for a few more days. Mac would have been happy to go too, he wasn't nearly as superstitious as Jack, didn't believe that the bad luck they ran into on that ill-fated mission now known only as Cairo had anything to do with them choosing to work on that particular day of the year, but Jack had been preemptive in his dedication to keeping them from working on that day and had taken it upon himself to request it off, for both of them, for as far into the future as the Phoenix schedules would allow. Apparently, that request was still standing even if Mac was the only one still technically employed there and he found himself moping around an empty house, worrying about a partner he couldn't even check in with on that cursed day. He knew Jack wasn't alone, not really, that the hunt for Kovacs wasn't a one-man job and that Jack had an entire team, the best of the best, watching his back, but months had passed since he left and it still didn't feel right. 

He probably wouldn't have been as antsy over the entire situation if he'd had something else to keep him occupied but he hadn't even been lucky enough to be coming off a mission giving him an excuse to sleep straight through the day. In an ironic twist of fate, he had just been cleared for fieldwork the day before but his team was already gone without him, leaving him alone, bored and missing Jack with nothing but a refrigerator shelf full of beers and a still-sore bullet graze on his thigh. 

He held off as long as he could, trying to find tasks to fill the day, but Bozer had given him strict instructions not to touch any kitchen appliance while he was gone and Mac was pretty sure Jack would tell him not to work on the bike still sitting propped up in the corner of the living room on Cairo Day because the curse could be transferable. 

A call to Bozer's phone and then Riley's went unanswered, confirming his suspicions that they wouldn't be home that day. 

Evening eventually came, as did the pizza Mac had ordered, but it tasted bland and looking at it, the meat-lovers half that he still ordered out of habit sitting untouched on the counter, was the final straw. He grabbed one of the bottles from the fridge, letting the cool glass rest against his leg, an improvised ice pack to ease some of the soreness pacing had caused, as he headed towards the deck. It felt wrong too though, once he was there. Empty and quiet with no booming laugh, the tabletops empty instead of being covered in way too many takeout containers of questionably-authentic Egyptian food. No knowing eyes warning him to sit down and prop his leg up. Mac turned around and went back inside, dropping onto the couch with a huff and keeping both feet firmly planted on the floor out of spite. 

The cigar box on the fireplace mantle caught his eye. He had brought it home with him not long after Jack had left, knowing that it would be safer at his own house than in Jack's empty apartment. There was a GTO sitting in Mac's garage now too, for those same reasons. The fact that Mac took her out for a drive on nights when he couldn't sleep and missed his partner had absolutely nothing to do with it. 

"Why not?" He mumbled to himself as he sat the still unopened bottle down on the coffee table and pulled on his shoes, grabbing the keys to the GTO and a full six-pack from the fridge on his way out the door. 

It was dark by the time he made it to the cemetery. 

Spending the night drinking beer in a cemetery wasn't how Mac had intended for the day to end, but he was stuck in his head and he had learned years ago that that sometimes Jack was the only person who could bring him out of it. Maybe that ability had been passed down from one generation of Daltons to the next. 

"Hi, Mister Dalton, Sir," He began, hating how awkward he sounded, even to himself. "Hope I'm not bothering you. I know it's late. Or, at least it is here. Not sure how time works on your side of things. If you don't mind... I'm gonna hang out here for a little while?" He paused, looking around, waiting for a sign to come from the shadows telling him that Jack's father didn't want him interrupting his peace and quiet. When nothing happened, he continued. "I've been missing your son a little more than usual today. Not, that I don't miss him all the time but today was... ours. And I guess I never really pictured having to go through it without him." 

"He told you about Cairo, right?" Mac asked, twisting the top off one of the bottles and sitting down in the damp grass, back pressed against the cool stone wall, trying to find the positioning as natural as Jack always seemed to. "I'm sure he did. Well. Today's the anniversary of that day. And we always spend it together. It's weird not having him here. I bet you miss him too, huh? I know he'd come here and visit all the time." 

There was no answer, not that Mac had really been expecting one, but Jack had always made it look so natural, keeping the conversation going as if it wasn't a one-way connection. Maybe for him, it hadn't been. 

"I wish I knew what he told you about that mission," Mac continued, pushing through the awkwardness, telling himself he was talking to more than a slab of granite, that he was talking to the man Jack had assured him time and time again would have loved him as if he was his actual grandson. "Knowing Jack it was crazy elaborated, not that the truth needed many embellishments." Mac laughed, taking a drink. "Probably told you he fought off twenty armed guys instead of twelve, stuff like that. Not that he couldn't have managed twenty. You raised one hell of a man, that's for sure. No way I'd be sitting here talking to you tonight if it weren't for him. Probably wouldn't have made it out of the sandbox. Definitely wouldn't have survived Cairo without him there beside me. " 

"Guess I shouldn't keep talking about it. We're not really supposed to tell people about what happened over there, but he always said you knew how to keep a secret." Mac took another drink just to have something to do, letting his head fall against the stone behind him with a defeated thump. "Hey, do me a favor? Don't tell anyone how much I miss him, okay? That stays between us. Don't tell anyone I'm pouring one out for him here, either," Mac instructed, taking a final sip from the bottle in his hand before tipping it up and pouring it into the grass beside him. "I'm sure there's a law about that somewhere." 

"What are you doing wastin' a perfectly good beer for?" A voice called out from behind Mac, startling him and sending him scrambling to his feet. "You know, if that's supposed to be for me I can think of a better place for it to go than that." 

"Jack?" Mac blinked through the dim moonlight, hoping he wasn't imagining things and it really was his partner stepping closer " What are you doing here? How?" 

"It's Cairo Day," Jack's smile was bright in the darkness, tearing his eyes away from Mac's for a brief moment to glance down at his watch. "For a few more hours that is. I didn’t even realize it at first. Not cause I forgot." He quickly corrected. "Just cause the days all kinda blended together after a while. No reason to go lookin' at the date when one day's the same as the next. But when I did I called in some favors, pulled some strings." 

"You're really here?" Mac's grip on the nearly-empty beer bottle began to shake, and he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. He hadn't allowed himself to even hope such a thing was possible. 

"I'm here," Jack confirmed, stepping closer and taking the bottle out of Mac's hand, finishing the contents in one drink before smiling at the headstone in front of him. "Hey, pops. Long time no see. Mac here been keepin' you company?" 

"I..." Mac began but he couldn't think of a way to explain that he had decided on a whim that spending the evening with any Dalton was better than none at all without embarrassing himself. "I... he... you're here?"   
\

"Yeah," Jack laughed, placing his empty bottle back in the cardboard holder, which was growing soggy from the grass. "See, now, you keep sayin' that but I don't think you quite believe it. I was expectin' a hug at the very least." He held his arms open and that was all the invitation Mac needed to rush forward and fold himself into an embrace that had been months in the making. 

"How long can you stay?" Mac asked after a moment, pulling back just enough to meet Jack's eyes and begin to rebuild the walls he had allowed to crumble from within the safety of his partner's arms. "Nobody else is here. Not here, here, obviously." He looked around the dark cemetery for a moment. "Here in LA. They're on a mission. It's just me." 

"I, uh, I can't stay long, actually," Jack frowned, already dreading the moment he would have to head back. "Like, not long at all. And I ain't gonna lie, I was hoping to see 'em all before I ship out, but that's okay. Today isn't their's anyway." 

"They're going to be upset," Mac warned, telling himself not to be selfishly pleased with the thought of having his partner be just his, even if it was only for a few hours. "They missed you too, you know." 

"I know. I miss them. But it's Cairo Day. That was never about them, that's our thing. Our weird little family tradition, you and me." 

"You sure you don't want to stay?" Mac asked. He knew it was a low blow, tempting Jack with that offer, but there wasn't much he wouldn't give to go back to the way things used to be. Back to a world where Jack wouldn't leave him too. 

"Want to?" Jack scoffed. "Course I want to, hoss. Don't mean I can, though. Not yet."

"I know," Mac smiled sadly. "You have to take him down first. It's important, I get it. And I'm not mad, I understand, I just had to at least remind you that it was an option." 

"I'm comin' home to you," Jack promised. "I am, kid. Every day I'm not here? Puts us one day closer to that happening. But since I'm here now, at least for a little while, why don't we sit down and talk about why you limped your way into that hug? You hurt?"

"I'm fine," Mac assured as they settled back down into the grass, neither of them bothered by the fact that they were sitting closer than they normally would have been. "Really. Barely a scrape. If I'd been cleared for duty a day earlier I wouldn't even be here, I'd be on that mission with everybody else." 

"Well, thank goodness for that then," Jack apparently decided that the space between them was too much and reached over, wrapping an arm around Mac's shoulders and pulling him even closer. "So long as it really is just a scrape." 

"It might have started out as a bullet graze," Mac admitted, ducking his head, unable to hide anything from Jack even after spending months apart. "But I really am fine. Hardly even feel it, you just scared me. Thought I was alone." 

"You weren't alone," Jack protested, nodding towards his father's name, etched in stone in front of them. "He was with ya. He's always keepin' an eye on you. I asked him to before I left. And besides, what were you thinkin'? Saying you wouldn't have been here. We don't work on Cairo Day, dude. You know that." 

"You were." 

"This is bigger than some job, Mac," Jack sighed. "You know that, right? That I wouldn't just up and leave you for a random gig?" 

"I know," Mac let his head fall to rest on Jack's shoulder, soaking up all the comfort of having Jack back, if only for a moment. "But it didn't feel like it today." 

Jack's cheek dropped down on top of Mac's hair and they stayed like that for hours, talking, swapping stories of what they had missed in one another's lives over the past few months. All too soon, Jack's watch let out a beep, signaling an alarm he had set. "Aw, come on," He groaned, tensing immediately at the sound. "Already?"   
"This soon?" Mac asked, slowly pulling away from Jack's shoulder. "I feel like you just got here." 

"I told you I couldn't stay long," Jack ran a tired hand over his face. 

"But you probably spent longer on the plane getting you here than you actually spent with boots on the ground," Mac protested. 

"Oh, yeah," Jack confirmed with a sad smile. "For sure. But it was worth every second of it, dude. 'Sides, it's after midnight. Cairo Day's officially over." 

"For once I wish it wasn't," Mac forced a sad smile of his own. 

"I'm comin' back to you, kid," Jack said again, a newfound determination rebuilding itself in his dark eyes as he forced himself to his feet, offering a hand to help Mac up. "I promise." 

"I know," Mac's voice was low as he let Jack pull him up, trying to hide the way the words trembled as he said them. "I'll be here." 

Jack nodded, focusing on the familiar headstone was easier than looking at his partner's face so he tried to fix his gaze there but paused when he saw the beer bottles, forgotten. "How many of those are empty? You drove here, right? Want a lift?"

"Just the one you saw," Mac assured with a sheepish grin. "And I'm pretty sure you actually drank more of it than I did. As much as I miss the passenger seat of the GTO, I'm fine to drive home. Don't miss your flight."

"You been drivin' my car?" Jack asked, surprised, an authentic smile breaking through the melancholy of his leaving again. 

"Yeah," Mac reached up to rub at the back of his neck, embarrassed. He hadn't intended to let that little bit of information slip out. "Sometimes. Not all that often. I'll stop if..."

"No!" Jack interrupted him. "No, I love that. It's not right to just leave her sittin' around gatherin' dust, ain't that right old man?" He let a gentle hand fall against the smooth top of the granite stone beside him. "We built her back from the ground up together before he passed her down to me. It's tradition. She was always gonna be yours one day anyway." 

"She's not mine. Not yet. Not for a long time. You're coming back, remember?" Mac teased, though he wasn't entirely joking, trying to mask the sudden onslaught of emotions that came from realizing Jack's plan for his beloved car. 

"Right," Jack agreed. "Hopefully real soon. You take care of her till then, alright?" 

"I will," Mac promised, wincing as the alarm on Jack's watch sounded again. "You probably should head out." 

"Yeah," Jack nodded, flashing a grin at his dad's headstone. "I'll see you later, pop. We'll have more time to catch up when I'm home for good. You still keep on keepin' an eye on my boy for me though, alright?" Saying goodbye to him was easier than saying it to Mac. Maybe it was because he'd had a lifetime to practice doing it. Or maybe it was because sons were supposed to grow up and leave their fathers. That was natural. But fathers leaving their sons? Jack couldn't imagine that being how any story was supposed to go.

"Be safe," Mac said when Jack turned back to face him, reaching out a hand. 

Jack wrapped his own hand around Mac's, not missing the barely-there twitch of disappointment in Mac's jaw at the touch before his breath was pulled out of his chest as Jack used his grip to pull Mac closer for a hug. "I spent every single day since I left regretting that damn handshake," He murmured into familiar blonde hair, bringing his free hand up to rest against the back of Mac's head. "We hug in this family. I'm sorry I forgot that." 

"It's okay," Mac assured, taking a moment to selfishly bury his face into Jack's neck before stepping back. 

"No," Jack shook his head, leaning back to meet Mac's eyes without breaking entirely out of the hug, not ready to lose that contact just yet. "No, it isn't okay. You deserved better than that. I'm just thankful I got another chance to make it right." 

"Not gonna lie, it kinda shocked me," Mac admitted, staring down at a scuff mark on his boot as if it were the most interesting thing he'd ever seen. "I mean, you go in for a hug any chance you get. Kinda wondered why you didn't then." 

"Hey," Jack pulled Mac's eyes up to his with a careful finger beneath his chin. "I'm sorry. Honestly? I didn't think I was strong enough. I thought that if I let myself have more than that, more than a stupid handshake, I wouldn't go." 

"And now?"

"Now I'm just remindin' myself of what I've got to make it back home for."

"You've got a whole family waiting here when you do," Mac promised, taking another step back and finally breaking out of Jack's hold. "But it's never going to happen if you don't catch your flight. Every day's one day closer, right?"

"Right," Jack agreed with a sigh. "You leavin' now too?"

"No, I... I think I'll stay here for a little bit longer if that's okay," Mac shot a quick glance at the tombstone, a part of him still expecting a protest to come from somewhere but it never did. 

"Course it's okay," Jack assured. "I'll see y'all soon."

Mac didn't move from that spot, feet firmly planted, unwavering, until Jack was entirely out of sight. "I know he asked you to keep an eye on me," His voice was quiet, barely a whisper, the slightest sound seemed overwhelmingly loud with the counterbalance of Jack's voice gone. "But I've got people taking care of me. You just keep him safe, okay? I'll be fine as long as he is." 

Mac had spent years with Jack watching his back, it was time for Jack to have some of that security for himself. Dalton's were the best of the best when it came to serving overwatch duties, it only made sense that they would make pretty great guardian angels too.


End file.
